Depending on the kind of exhibition space available, Nathalie Miebach's sculptural wall installation “Changing Waters” can spread out to more than 30 feet in length.

At Gallery Nord, however, the Boston-based artist had to reel in the colorful work — which maps the interaction of weather and ocean systems in the Gulf of Maine — to a relatively modest but still respectable 18 feet.

“It's a flexible piece,” Miebach says.

Composed of multiple parts, including large woven sections, Miebach's is one of myriad works by artists featured in six exhibits sponsored by the Surface Design Association.

The national organization, which promotes textile-inspired art and design, met for a conference in San Antonio this month. While the gathering is over, the shows featuring artists from around the country continue at Gallery Nord, SAY Sí, AnArte Galley, Parchman-Stremmel Gallery, the International Center and the UTSA Downtown Gallery.

While textile art is associated with functionality, the works showcased in the exhibits go “far above and beyond anything functional,” says San Antonio artist Jane Dunnewold, president of the organization based in Sebastopol, Calif.

“In-ter-face: Connections,” the SDA members exhibit at SAY Sí, features 12-by-12-inch pieces by 140 artists using a variety of materials and techniques to demonstrate innovative use of textile media.

“If anybody wants a crash course in the kinds of textile processes being used today in contemporary works, that is the perfect place to get visual bites of all the really great stuff people are doing,” Dunnewold says. “It's just astounding.”

At the Southwest School of Art, James pairs quilt work with digital photography, and Wanjiku creates sculpture and wall hangings with pieces of metal and stainless steel wire.

“Michael James is one of the celebrated artists in the field. He's also been moving with the times, starting to incorporate digital photograph into his process,” says Kathy Armstrong, the school's director of exhibitions. “And then Naomi is one of our local San Antonio artists. She's been working so hard for many years, just really changing her approach. I did a studio visit about a year ago, and realized how compatible the two shows were together with one the softer and one the harder, but both dealing with this piecing together of work.”

Miebach's media are scientific data and the basket.

“I was attracted to the basket simply because it was a very simple three-dimensional grid. It was a very useful tool, and then the different kind of weaves you can explore opened up some other possibilities,” she says. “Some of the older pieces on my website look very organic and they have these contours that go in and out. Those are baskets that are totally driven by data. So the wall piece is sort of a step away from that, and trying to use weaving as a way of translating the information through the filters of a map.”

For “Changing Waters,” the artist gathered information from buoys located throughout the Gulf of Maine.

“When I was making this piece, I was very interested in having both the sort of logic of science (and) the mind-set of an 8-year-old who loves to play with Legos,” Miebach says.

The artist's use of color and reference to toys within the work is deliberate “because I'm trying to lure the viewer into this information through the perspective of play and not immediately tell the viewer this is all about science,” she says.

Here is a list of ongoing exhibits that opened in conjunction with the Surface Design Association conference:

“Organizing Nature,” works by Michael James, and “A Tradition of Strings,” works by Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga, through July 7, Southwest School of Art, Navarro Campus, Russell Hill Rogers Gallery 1 and II. 210-224-1848; www.swschool.org.

“Equivalent Forms,” works by Trish Ramsay, through July 5, Southwest School of Art, Ursuline Campus, Ursuline Hall Gallery. 210-224-1848; www.swschool.org.